A couple of week ago, a Korean Team published the paper about the creation of a room temperature superconductor:
Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, Young-Wan Kwon
Here is the abstract:
For the first time in the world, we succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor (Tc≥400 K, 127∘C) working at ambient pressure with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure. The superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect. The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress. It concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface. The heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99. The unique structure of LK-99 that allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces is the most important factor that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008
Video discusson on the Web:
Is this the Biggest Discovery of the Century? Physics has always been my favorite field of study. Everything from how planes fly, to how solar panels work… but in the quantum world, things get weird and interesting. This new breakthrough coming out of Korea has the potential to be one of the biggest breakthroughs of the CENTURY. A room temperature, ambient pressure Superconductor. So how exactly does it work, is this research legit, and why does it matter? Let’s figure this out together! Room Temperature Ambient Pressure Super Conductor Breakthrough
And an article in Futurism discussing the mania:
The news even triggered huge superconductor-related stock bumps this week, to the point that the Korea Exchange issued warnings to investors, but stopped short of halting trading, Bloomberg reports.
In short, it’s a huge deal — if it holds up. So it’s no wonder that scientists are now stumbling over themselves to recreate the material.
And the drama is only getting started. This week, more researchers have come forward claiming to have proven the material’s existence and miraculous properties — but not everybody is convinced, creating a striking public schism in the world of physics. Is everybody racing to take credit for a discovery of the century and bag a Nobel prize — or is it a colossal fool’s errand?
https://futurism.com/claim-room-temperature-superconductor-tearing-apart
Let the discussions begin.
HT/David L. Hagen, Yooper
If it is real, and does not have some unreported flaw, such a product would be fantastically valuable.
But right now, it could be a repeat of cold fusion.
I used the cold fusion story as one of several illustrations in the Recognition chapter of ebook The Arts of Truth. The fundamental mistake Ponzi and Fleischman thinking it was fusion at all.
The phenomenon is real and reproducible. It is explained by Widom-Larsen Theory as a consequence of the weak force, the inverse of Beta radioactive decay—where with sufficient added energy a proton captures a ‘heavy’ electron and becomes a neutron. Reliably replicable at lab scale, but to be useful needs about 10x the energy input. So far nobody has gotten above 4x. 2x is easy.
Cold fusion always reminded me of the dancing frog. I’d be amazed if solar or wind achieve 4x let alone 10x.
Yes, in fact I worked in a lab that was dedicated to alternative energy. And we replicated the work of Celani and obtained bona fide thermal energy gains measured with careful, calibrated and cross checked calorimetry, of 1.37 repeatably.
That is 137% more energy output than was input. LENR is real and yes, you need gains of at least 5, to be economical. We abandoned that as 1.37 is not commercially viable.
The same research group I was associated with also had many iterations of RTS or Room Temperature Superconductors, back in the early 2,000’s. However each iteration had flaws or drawbacks either in manufacture, or implementation.
Don’t get your hopes up, this [RTS] is not new, and not likely really commercially viable either as yet.
Failures to replicate results leave researchers skeptical:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02481-0
From today.
If I were the Koreans, and had not yet filed full patents around the world, I would have given the chemistry but left out the synthesis details. Just like I did with early conference reports on my very improved supercap nanocarbons. So early failures to replicate may have a reasonable explanation.
The team published a recipe for making the material.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/04/superconductor-claims-spark-investor-frenzy-but-scientists-are-skeptical-.html
And they already applied for a patent.
Well, it’s good enough to become Stanford’s president. / sarc
Not sarcasm at all
Tom, exactly my thought, I’ve been hearing about super conductivity for 50 years. The first day I heard about cold fusion I immediately thought bull feathers, when the physics experiment, we all did in high school and observed the hydrogen bubbles came to mind.
For quantitative details and discussion on the new room temperature superconductor see:
There are already 11 scientific publications posted on ARXIV.org for “LK-99” and “LK99”
https://arxiv.org/search/?query=LK-99&searchtype=all&source=header
https://arxiv.org/search/?query=LK99&searchtype=all&source=header
Scholar posts 16 publications on “LK0-99” and 30 on “LK99” in 2023
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2023&q=lk-99&hl=en&as_sdt=0,15
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C15&as_ylo=2023&q=lk99&btnG=
For popular: Andrew Cote detailed potentials of LK-99 on June 7 etc. as @Andercot on X
https://twitter.com/Andercot/status/1666629851305111554
For Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) see publications and presentations by Japanese Prof. Akoto-Takahashi e.g. on ResearchGate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Akito-Takahashi-2/research They have demonstrated 3rd generation LENR with temperatures of 600C to 900C for H/Ni > 1 and T > 300C.
Already debunked:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/08/09/room-temperature-superconductor-lk99-evidence/
Nature seems to have an unwritten Law – Thou shall not get something for nothing…or for very little. That’s why we don’t have anti-gravity machines powered by fusion parked in our garages.
Except there’s enough natural radioactive ore to make nuclear reactors.
The process of synthesizing the material is complex and energy-intensive — if it works, it’s hardly “for free”.
The more energy that is stored…
the big-bada-boom when something goes wrong.
https://youtu.be/kFdLgWrUt10?t=107
I like to think of it as, “In physics as in everything else, there’s no such thing as a free lunch” – despite what people want to believe.
What about the Big Bang?
(Who/what paid for that?)
Can these materials be used to adjust historic air temperature measurements?
droll.
only downwards
LOL! I love the comment, but I didn’t up voted it because it’s off-topic. Sorry.
Discussing possible uses of super conductors is off topic for an article about super conductors?
The comment was about using these materials to “adjust historic air temperature measurements.” I fail to see how these materials could ever be used to change the past.
It is off topic. But failing to see how these materials could ever be used to change the past also misses the point.
Somehow, the past is changed regularly.
It was sarcasm.
if you have to tell people it was sarcasm, then it wasnt
Let’s assume this is fully legitimate.
It is a lead apatite structure, so I’d assume it is brittle material. As such it will take some doing to make usefully reliable items, i.e. coils and such, from it. At present, not a lot of energy is wasted in the non-superconducting coils of electric motors. So, while it might be a great physics and materials science advance, it won’t have an enormous impact on energy conversion and usage. It would be a big incremental step.
Possibly it will aid in making low friction bearings of various sorts. Once again a big incremental step.
Kevin, 20 more years.
Perhaps. I looked through the paper and found the idea of using substitution to produce internal strain as a substitute for external pressure to be quite clever. Now to find, possibly, a material that can be made according to the same scheme that is ductile and has a larger critical current and critical magnetic field.
On second thought ductility might relieve the internal strains necessary for superconductivity, but higher critical values anyway.
MRI scanners would be a big and disruptive application if this Pb apatite RT superconductivity is real. At present MRI and NMR (magnetic resonance imaging and nuclear magnetic resonance) get their needed big magnetic fields from coils of Cu cooled to crazy cold temperatures with liquid helium. If this is now possible at room temperature this will make such magnetic instruments a lot cheaper and safer. But I’m skeptical for now.
I hadn’t thought of a replacement application where the state of art still requires what we might call classical superconductivity. However, this material seems like a poor candidate as its critical current is so whimpy. As I said the idea, using lattice substitution to create internal strains, may be more important that this particular material.
I wondered about that too, how big a deal it is if it’s something that is difficult to make into wires.
How big a difference is it really for something like super fast trains? While levitating trains would be cool and reduce friction in the wheels and axles, one still has to deal with air resistance. Does anyone know of some research that shows what the benefits would be?
Transformers that don’t lose any energy would be a huge advance.
A lot of the energy that is lost by transformers is lost via eddy currents in the core. Even superconductors won’t get rid of eddy currents.
The ideal core material would be one that has zero resistance to magnetic fields and infinite resistance to current.
Give it 30 years and we will know if it was a game changer.
The concept is likely more valuable than the actual material. Lead is not particularly abundant and processing lead oxide is not environmentally friendly.
Stating actual current value is meaningless unless the cross-section is known. If tolerable current density is low then it has little value.
So the tunnelling concept needs to be tested on more useful and abundant materials.
Quantum electron tunneling is real, and has been used to make semiconductor memory devices at scale. Unfortunately, NAND flash was cheaper and simpler to make for the same memory functionality. So my MOT startup failed economically.
Expected to be part of the first commercially viable fusion power plant in about 5 billion years.
I dug around before commenting. IMO the key in the arxiv submission is the video (from which I found a screen grab) of the Meissner effect. It isn’t perfect. One end of the sliver of material is clearly levitated, but the other end rests on the magnet. Probably inconsistent lab material. Could mean tricky to reproduce LK99 consistently. Could mean tricky to scale. Really tricky to produce useful wires, as any apatite class material is a brittle metal phosphate. In nature, apatite is calcium phosphate crystals.
But unless the Korean experimental video was faked somehow, room temperature ambient pressure superconductivity was clearly demonstrated at lab scale by Meissner effect in a portion of one LK99 sample.
Another interesting thing from the abstract. The prevailing ‘Cooper pairs of electrons’ theory for low temperature superconductivity cannot be the physics just shown. Just like ‘cold fusion’ wasn’t proton fusion at all. It was a consequence of the weak force finally explained by Widom-Larsen theory and reproducibly experimentally proven. Inverse of radioactive beta decay, but adding rather than releasing energy (see subcomment above for why not yet commercial). Same way neutron stars are formed, except there the heavy electron ‘energy’ is supplied by gravitational collapse.
My first thought was mag-lev railways and bearings. The individual components can be made as lumps, tested for efficacy, bolted in place, and never moved. No winding, no reaving, doesn’t need to be made in wires or small cross section solids that face subsequent handling. A bunch of plates bolted to the rail cars over magnets in the rail bed. Use a conventional linear motor or fiddle with the suspension magnets to push fore/aft instead of just up.
Ho hum, if there’s anything that destroys superconductivity, its magnetic fields,and ac currents, which generate their own magnetic fields.Even if true the usage is limited to very low current applications.
The multibillion ITER using superconducting magnets would rather strongly disagree. Your physics source?
He may have meant to specify the near room temperature super conductors.
Are they creating AC magnets or DC magnets inside ITER?
I’m guessing DC, trying to contain a plasma with an alternating magnetic field would make things more complicated by several orders of magnitude
If AC, the physics source is here
All moving electrons create a magnetic field. It doesn’t need to be AC.
Sparko, Is that where the “O” comes from, you cause people to go oh, oh, hadn’t thought of that but yes.
It’s the ‘Skin Effect’ in AC circuits (not DC) that will destroy it or make it worthless.
‘Skin Effect’ being where, in conductor carrying AC power, the electrons migrate to the outside (skin) of the conductor. The current density then gets very high and the effective ‘DC’ resistance of the conductor skyrockets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_effect
It is why large transmission lines may have 2, 3 or 4 thin conductors comprising each of their (apparently individual) cables – rather than one single thick conductor
Even at just 50 or 60Hz, the skin effect is very noticeable hence 4 thin wires in parallel can carry a lot more current/power than a single thick conductor
I think therein lies the problem with ‘superconductors’
Is it that folks assume that, because they are lossless, that can carry infinite power/current?
In this age of Kindergarten Science, it’s an easy mistake to make.
It does give some slight clue to the answer to “”division by zero””.
i.e. If the superconductor has zero resistance it **should** be able to carry infinite current – shouldn’t it?
So why not?
You are right…nonetheless some clever ideas to ponder.
Sabine Hossenfelder, a particle physicist who has a respected popular physics blog, casts shade on this “discovery.”
https://youtu.be/RjzL9cS3VW8?t=31
Yeah Sabine is great for physics, but she’s swallowed the AGW story hook line and sinker. It would be nice to get her and Judith Curry in a room for a discussion.
A room temperature superconductor is the lossless conductivity/efficiency nirvana of computing. It’s not what is possible, but what is dreamed.
I too dream. 😁
My biggest hope for super conductors is as a shielding material for space craft that travel outside of low earth orbit. Even a thin layer of super conducting material has the ability to prevent any charged particles from making it through to the crew. Uncharged particles aren’t a problem, because it takes magnetic fields to accelerate particles up to near light speed that makes them dangerous.
Just ordinary, normally conducting, metal will do what you want.
In 1st part because those particles, moving at such high speeds, are behaving like (electromagnetic) waves and all electromagnetic waves reflect when they meet a conducting surface.
They’d simply ‘bounce off’ any metal.
In 2nd part because when a charged particle enters a (lump/sheet of) metal, it would be akin me or you jumping into a swimming-pool full of treacle. We’d not get far.
So how do neutrons get accelerated – classically from inside fusion/fission reactions?
None of those things would occur unless they did (get accelerated)
edit for ‘realisation’
Assertion: Any and all superconducting materials would be perfect mirrors.
The closest we have is Silver metal, as good a conductor as you’ll get anywhere and we all know how shiny Silver is.
So there’s your first test for any claim about a “new superconducting material”
If it’s not insanely/impossibly shiny – it ain’t gonna work
Large metal parts are scanned for defects with X-rays (electromagnetic waves).
If normal metal could do the job, then nuclear reactors wouldn’t need thick sheilding.
Yes, the approaching particle does induce a current that in turn creates an opposing magnetic field. However because of internal resistance from non-superconducting metals, these currents quickly die away and as a result the magnetic field is many orders of magnitude too small to deflect an incoming charged particle.
It’s only when the metal is super conducting will the induced magnetic field be big enough to deflect the incoming particle.
Neutrons don’t get accelerated by magnetic fields, they don’t interact with magnetic fields at all. That’s why I specified charged particles. The energy that neutrons have in a fission reaction comes from the energy released when the particle fuses.
For the most part, neutrons don’t play a role in fusion, protons do.
There is a type of fusion reaction in which neutrons do play a role. I forget the name that astronomers give to this type of fusion. It takes almost no energy for a neutron to get absorbed by an atomic nucleus because the neutron does not have an electrical charge, it is not repelled by the atomic nucleus. After the neutron is absorbed by the nucleus, the neutron undergoes a beta decay by releasing an electron and an anti-neutrino.
It is thought that most of the elements heavier than iron are made using this method in the neutron rich environment after a collison between two neutron stars.
Silver’s conductivity has nothing to do with it being shiny. Gold is even more conductive and it is much less shiny.
The reason for this is simple, photons don’t have an electric charge. Whether a photon is absorbed or reflected depends only on the available energy bands of the atoms or molecules that make up the object in question.
The previous generation of “high” temperature super conductors were flat black.
https://resources.saylor.org/wwwresources/archived/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/High-Temperature-Superconductivity.pdf
Excellent comments, MarkW.
You can spend a thousand dollars to buy an old clunker, or you can spend five hundred thousand on a Ferrari EV. Yet both get you from A to B. It depends on how much you are willing to pay. Room-temp superconductors are a brilliant step forward, but it’s all about the dollars and sense.
Freudian, autocorrect or clever pun?
Whichever, I still like it
I am disappointed by the lack of major response to CtM’s post. He said (paraphrased) let the controversy begin. Meaning he wanted us to think.
I inferred that to mean research, learn, then comment.
It apparent few others did, and that many who commented did no research at all.
NOT up to WUWT standards, in my opinion.
“not everybody is convinced, creating a striking public schism in the world of physics.”
Nothing unusual here – a discovery has to be confirmed independently. Scientific method, not IPCC (or, more generally UN) “science”.
I think you summed things up pretty good up above, Rud. You kind of took the wind out of everyone else’s sails. 🙂
exactly.
its interesting how particular types of personalities respond to the stimulus.
the stimulus here is Novelty. something new. or you could say the stimulus is
Controversy: a science dispute.
the interesting PATTERN is a typical engineer pattern of “thinking”
oh something new? what can i USE IT for.?
or something new? its no good for X!
in both cases the application issue is used to avoid the controversy.
the rare pattern is the CTO pattern, the curious pattern of thinking
oh something controversial? who is right? how does this work
cant be cooper pairs what then?
in any case these types of things are good for people to check their bias
not political bias. I mean their cognitive style.
how do you respond to new science, new medicine, new technology, new politics.
theres a website tracking replications.
We all have some Pb apatite in our bodies – specifically in our bones. The mineral phase of bone is largely calcium hydroxyapatite (as well as brushite and a few other minerals). Apatite is a complex mineral which can be considered as a hybrid of phosphate and carbonate. It is anionic so binds a divalent cation such as calcium and other group II alkaline earth metals. However hydroxyapatite (HA) is not choosy and can substitute a wide range of metals – especially divalent ones like Pb – in place of Calcium. Thus Pb is among many metals that are called “bone-seeking” since if you ingest or inhale Pb from the environment (and we all do) then Pb in blood binds to our bone surfaces. And stays there. By a quirk of the relative solubility of carbonate and phosphate of lead being opposite to that of calcium, those bone surface deposits which In calcium are short-lived, in lead will stay at the bone for years – or until the surface is remodelled by osteoclast cells.
Bone-seeking elements as well as lead include strontium, radium and plutonium. Thus these radioactive isotopes stay in our bones for life if they enter our bodies.
So … if Pb apatite (PA) is superconducting – then we are all walking superconductors, yay!
And old people more so than younger ones:
My understanding is that lead has no benefit for human physiology. It is a poison at any dosage level. Hence the large effort undertaken decades ago to eliminate dispersive use as a fuel additive.
I wouldn’t say at any dosage. We naturally consume lead in our food but at such low levels that we don’t have an issue with it. Sea food is probably higher in lead than land based food. For a while they were seeing high lead content in Tuna but after additional research it turned out to be the result of the solder used to assemble the can. For years lead solder was used with copper plumbing. Normally the oxide would reduce the amount of lead transferred to the water but acidic water could cause higher levels of lead.
The biggest problem with lead is it affects the brain long before it’s harmful to the body. On the other hand, there are lead compounds that are extremely toxic. So Toxic that a single drop on the skin can kill you in a relatively short period of time. The lead additive for gas was one of them and the plant that manufactured it had extreme safety precautions to protect the workers.
There is more about lead….it is found in Greenland ice cores dating back to coincide with the Roman Empire….the Romans mined silver when the economy was good and lead was a byproduct….it may also have contributed to some of those crazy Roman Emperors……lead can do that if you drink wine from lead vessels.
Lead plumbing of which there are still houses plumbed with lead pipe. Some say part of the decline of the roman empire was due to their extensive use of lead.
Rick,
I had to study Pb toxicity in the 1990s after we acquired a property at Ardeer Melbourne that was a just- levelled car battery recycling plant. Luckily, one of the global go-to Pb toxicity people, Dr Allen Christophers, had 40 years of experience and was happy to consult.
There was no doubt that high quantities of ingested Pb caused mainly brain damage and death.
But around the 1990s the EPA people in US and here in Australia selected Pb as an example of a toxin that could be used to flex regulatory muscle in many new social sectors. The race was under way to demonise Pb and it has largely succeeded. The Pb toxicity scene was treated much like the global warming scene, where an Establishment view held that all levels of Pb in the body were harmful and that minute doses could (would) lower the intelligence of children.
This led to claims like above, that a single drop of some chemical in leaded petrol would kill. Absolute piffle. Like UN wallah saying our seas were boiling, when you Rick have researched the 30 C barrier.
This is not the place, but please treat with caution the many claims that trace Pb reduces IQ. They do not have a mechanism. They do not have a diagnosis. They say there are negative correlations between Pb in blood and IQ, but the uncertainty in IQ measurement is huge. Post modern science thinking abounds, but there are few bodies in the morgue. About 10 per year die in US from Pb, in big doses, often from drinking moonshine in Pb stills. None report from low doses. Geoff S
You’re right Geoff, the Pb story developed the establishment’s “toxic” unscientific thought and behaviour patterns that alongside the LNT linear no threshold fallacy for ionising radiation – led on to the great climate mind-fail which followed the exact same patterns and medieval-religious ways of thinking. The same zero tolerance, “no safe dose” thinking that had underpinned witch hunts and anti-Jewish pogroms, served very well for Pb and radiation scare stories to punish science and industry and eventually to the Khmer Vert anti-science climate inquisition of which, sadly, there is no end in sight.
I also contacted once an Australian scientist from CSIRO (don’t remember his name) about modelling Pb in the body, back in the ‘90’s, even then there was an almost religious culture of maximal fear of toxic effect. When I pointed out new experimental biokinetic data involving the natural radioactive lead isotope Pb210 which showed that long term toxicity risks might be overestimated, he got upset (or scared for his own safety) and our correspondence ended.
Nice wordplay, Phil. Of course Vert is French for “Green” and the Khmer Rouge regime was a mass-murdering communist cabal with a mindset not unlike our present day Greens. If they succeed in their objectives, we will experience a similar level of death and destruction.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Khmer-Rouge
I disagree with the LNT idea, but lead does appear to become an issue at rather low levels — 10 ppb I am told presents a problematic burden. I’d almost like to know what my personal burden is because I have spent so much of my time soldering prototype circuits and then there was making the lead soldiers as a child from some kit my father had…a miniature lead foundry.
I say “almost” because who knows what the regulatory state might decide to do with me. They probably consider my ideas toxic already.
the LNT idea
=========
Evolution rules this out.
Australian scientist
theres your problem.
i was telling a friend some tales from ye olden days, and the ‘spooky’ electrical faults we encountered when dealing with lead-paint walls. It took me a while to get the guy to understand how the conductivity could play hell with circuitry accidentally touching a painted surface.
The wife looked at me pensively, and said: “So, we just talked about radiation damage from cell towers and microwave links, and the efforts taken to prevent us from protecting ourselves. Is that why they banned lead paint, so our houses can be transparent to microwaves?”
I’ve been looking for a few cans of leaded paint ever since….
First off, the idea that back in the 70’s, they were making plans to make people vulnerable to microwaves is laughable.
Beyond that, there is no evidence that low levels of microwaves have any impact on cells.
Yes, Mark, thank you for the reality check. microwaves weren’t even used for nothing back then, eh? We knew nothing about high tech stuff, back then. Couldn’t even make fones or compooters…
Give up the snark, you just don’t have the skill for it.
While they were using microwaves, they were only using them in tight beam signals between towers. They weren’t being beamed at homes. The vast majority of uses for microwaves weren’t developed until decades later.
Pointing out that there were few uses for microwaves back in the 70’s becomes, the people of the 70’s didn’t know how to phones or computers? Pathetic, really pathetic.
BTW, back in the 70’s, the only portable communication devices were walkie-talkies and car phones that were roughly the size of two bricks and weighed almost as much. Both of them used standard radio frequencies.
Taking your words literally, you would be claiming that one atom of lead is capable of causing illness or death in a person.
I suppose we need to define “poison”:
a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed.
Surely you know that would be absurd. So I suspect that your real meaning must be that the body doesn’t need lead for any of its functions. It can be perfectly healthy with no lead at all and therefore any quantity is at best useless and may at some level induce harmful effects?
Any time I see a claim like no safe dose, my bs alarm goes off. It’s the language of activist regulators who are trying to destroy some industry they oppose using pseudoscience.
A great graph, Rick. If lead is so bad, we must be so much better off than 50 years ago.
Thanks for all your answers. Just to add that one Pb oxide known as “red lead” was used as a cosmetic centuries ago for instance by the English queen Elizabeth I, possibly explaining problems with her health both physical and mental.
Not “red lead”, but white lead. Red lead is used in paint.
Not everything needs to be scaled up to be useful in some sort of application.
I’m currently experimenting with stacked thermoelectric modules which may give a relatively accurate calibration standard from ambient temperatures to about -50 C.
The process is not efficient in terms of energy usage. A useful gadget for that application.
I’d be an idiot to scale it up for cooling a house.
Doomberg had a good take on this the other day
About twenty years ago I had a chemist/material scientist get ahold of me and asked if I could prove that a material he’d concocted (an intermetallic compound) was or was not a better conductor than copper — not a superconductor, but a better conductor. I planned to just use a Kelvin bridge to compare a length of annealed copper against his sample but the fellow never followed through on bringing me a sample to work with.
Assuming this guy was not pulling my leg, I wonder if this lead apatite structure with substitution of Cu for Pb is related in some way. Perhaps what he had was an intermetallic with a spurious, and perhaps unrecognized and unplanned, substitution of some smaller ions — maybe even oxygen, leading to an enhanced conductivity.
In reading this preprint I realize I am very far behind on the advances in superconductivity over the past few decades.
Sometimes sciences advances in leaps when a dream is shown real. This has often raised interest in all science.
If this superconducting claim stands the test, it will excite large numbers of scientists with renewed effort and improvements and spinoffs. To me it is like the discovery of the transistor – look at the tremendous gains that followed.
Good, pure, hard science needs an uplifting event now and then. Let us hope that this is one. Geoff S
The EU will ban anything with lead in.
corky,
The EU is also trying to ban things with carbon in them, like coal.
Beware of regulation by belief.
Insist on regulation by proof.
Geoff S
proof is for math and logic and geometry.
prove you know the meaning of proof. you dont
To prove something is easy; replication of results.
The problem comes when you get confused and insist your successful proof is the whole truth.
To prove something is easy; replication of results.
who knew with 2 or 3 examples you could prove fermat last thereom.
replicating resuts is not proof. it is evidence
thats 3 replications. Proof. ?????
please see the problem of induction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
you guys dont understand the basics of reasoning: what is evidence
what is proof?
do you need proof to justify action?
what is a justified belief? warranted belief?
I thank you for taking the time out to educate me. As an unlettered, largely uneducated nosey-nose, I reply thusly:
If results repeat without fail my current reality remains valid. Evidence may be contrived, bought or coerced, results are reality.Your vax example omits all valid parameters; batch number, age of all other parameters, body mass…. Invalid evidence.I covered my ass regarding your allegations by stating clearly that proof does not necessarily constitute all aspects of reality. That is the basis of experimental science, not so? Improving our grasp of reality, as opposed to accepted truth?
Either steve is declaring that you don’t need any proof before creating regulations, or he’s proving that he is the one who doesn’t know the meaning of words.
of course you can Prove that in a right triangle a^2 +b^2 = c^2.
but 10 trillion examples of non trivial zeros on the critical line of the reiman hypothesis doesnt prove it true.
hint I never said you dont need proof,
you need evidence. whats the difference bewteen evidence and proof.?
a proof, lets say something like a proof of pythagorus means there is no point in collecting evidence. no point in looking for a right triangle and measuring sides to find an example where the sum of the squares of the sides is not equal to the square of the hypoteneuse.
evidence, however, is always inconclusive. weve tested 10 trilion zeros of the reinman zeta function and as hypothesized they all fall on the critical line a= 1/2 in the complex plane. 10 trillion examples does count as a proof.
you might say regulation requires scientific “proof” which is an oxymoron since in science we only have evidence and contingent
knowledge and probability.
proof in science? one thing feynman got right
Best moshism yet, you can do better though, try harder.
prove it
Easy.
A Proof is a printed copy of a manuscript, book, or other publication from the prepared printing device. It is used to “prove” that the document is correct and error-free. If the Proof copy passes inspection, the presses can roll. If not, the errors are corrected and a new Proof is created. For periodicals and time sensitive/fixed publications, they will create a sheet of errata rather than correct pre-publication, as they would for errors discovered post-publication.
In the alternative, proof is when I drop a 1 tonne weight on your toes and they are crushed, just as we all expect.
Seriously Steven, an English major should know that “proof” is, like almost all English words, susceptible to multiple interpretations. In this instance, if other groups follow the recipe and produce the same results, or if this group just sends out samples for others to inspect and test and the tests show the same results, consider the claim proved. It won’t matter if the claimed mechanism is correct if the claimed effect exists.
or alcohol proportion sufficient to maintain combustion.
congrats you just proved he was an idiot
wrong nobody thinks a proof in publication is error free.
and mere inspection doesnt prove a proof is error free.
Im guessing youve never studied proofs from actual texts.
hint: see the rare books collections.
“Seriously Steven, an English major should know that “proof” is, like almost all English words, susceptible to multiple interpretations. “
!
Sorry wrong again. AS a philosophy major my job is to interpret the poster in the most generous way possible.
its
called the principle of charity
OP said
Beware of regulation by belief.
Insist on regulation by proof.
so english and philosophy students DONT interpret text to make the writer sound stupid
can proof mean “print proof?” NO!
why not? because the author opposes proof to belief
that tells us he is talking epistemology
can proof mean alcohol content ?
NO.
again
every word has multiple meanings but OUR job is picking the meaning that makes the most sense.
theauthor creates an opposition bewteen belief and proof indicating that
hes refering to the epistemic meaning of proof. and NOT the other meanings of proof.
the problem with being a philosophy major is that you are taught to interpret texts and defend your reading.
there is only ONE meaning of proof that makes sense in context that Preserves the opposition the aothor emphasizes with his syntax
Luckily i got to teach argument at Univ. so Im used to reading stupid arguments too. but yours wasnt even cleverly wrong.
D-
Hint: if you want to play argument games around the meanings of terms, know your enemy. Im your huckleberry
Do you realise how obnoxiously supercilous this particular post of yours actually sounds?
(Now he’s gonna preach at me on the exact epistemology of “sound”)
I found the information on lead just as interesting as the article subject matter. I always thought the part of the MSM “lead narrative “ might be a bit over blown. As far as the super conductors go- not much new under the sun, a little like alchemy, most of the combinations have been tried. But hope springs eternal. I learn more here at WUWT in in 10 mins than 10 hours at main stream pop science sites.( with out the: oh it’s settled bit too)
Lead is a very useful metal but it comes at a cost. It takes surprisingly little lead burden, carried as lead substitutes for calcium in bone, to lead to lead poisoning (lead vs, lead — English language ambiguity). Ten or so parts per billion may lead to issues for some people. The Romans made a sweet drink by boiling grape juice in pewter vessels. The acid of the juice probably dissolving lead and making a terrible concoction. Everywhere the Romans went they took lead and their lead technology with them poisoning the local population. One of the symptoms, I am told, is megalomania.
When wine is stored in a clay pot (amphora) it can go sour, as the alcohol is converted to vinegar (acetic acid). In a lead bottle, the vinegar combines with the lead to form lead acetate (common name, Sugar of Lead) which is sweet and soluble. So poor folk had the wine turn bad, but for rich folk the wine got sweeter. (and poisonous, but that’s a problem for later and we all might die first.)
most of the combinations have been tried.
how many combinations are there?
I agree. From my perspective, as a child I devoured science news as if it were the science fiction novels I enjoyed so much. I have seen many, many claims and headlines and promises through my life, and I can say this much:
I have no idea when we will succeed, but little by little, we DO progress. Science is not magic, and Engineering has no bottled spells. It takes work, work for which the new generation seems purposely unequipped for…
UN2030: “…we shall foster innovation…” Meaning they take it away from those who gave birth to it, and raise it in captivity, far from prying eyes.
There are a number of very substantive critiques of the LK99 assertions. The most damaging is that this is just a diamagnetic effect and not actual superconductivity.
Keep in mind what superconductivity actually is supposed to be: effective zero resistance to current flow.
One outcome of superconductivity is very low energy cost magnetism; opposing pole magnetism in turn can perform the “levitating” effect shown.
However, there are other ways to get “levitation” like diamagnetism. Diamagnetism is a quantum effect creating an “opposing pole” type magnetic repulsion but without generating a polar magnetic field at all.
So if this effect is diamagnetism as opposed to superconducting – it is extremely unlikely to be useful for anything except very expensive novelties. High quality apatite is a literal gem material, for example, and the actual material used is not even the core apatite, but one in which some of the lead atoms in apatite are switched out for copper.
Here is a paper where a team in Madrid that has worked on sapphire matrix lead says that the results are not likely to be true superconductivity: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2308/2308.01723.pdf
If you look at this paper – they note that “superconducting blobs” were detected in the above sapphire crystal lead matrix but that the actual resistance measured as shown in the graphs was anything but “close to zero”.
As an engineer: the materials costs and fabrication are issues but less critical than whether actual superconductivity is occurring i.e. zero resistance to current flow. If actual superconductivity is occurring even near room temperature, the costs won’t matter because there will be applications for it.
If, on the other hand, all that actually is happening is “superconductivity like” behavior, this is the same useless nonsense as the vast vast majority of high specialization/low to zero applicability that has come out of ivory tower labs for the last 20 years – basically different flavors of p-hacking.
That is my thoughts on this, summed up more technically than I could.
Superconductivity is not really about floating magnets. It’s about zero resistance to current.
Diamagnetism explains the magnetic effect. And aligned dipoles in a substance as regular as this makes sense.
It’s interesting but I am sceptical.
From the above-cited publication’s abstract:
“The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure.”
Sounds far too good to be true . . . so, caveat emptor.
My take: if indeed “minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %)” is the sole cause of LK-99’s RT superconductivity, then considering it’s likelihood of having a non-zero coefficient-of-thermal-expansion invites the question of how constant the temperature of the material must be to maintain superconductivity.
Limit case conditions: if using the material, in superconductivity mode, to store massive amounts of EM energy, you sure better have it isolated against any externally-induced stresses or shock loads!
Strictly speaking – there is a good physics based argument behind the “minute molecular structural pressures” vs. the high pressure or low temperature superconductors that do work. This has to do with the electron shell/cloud. I am nowhere specialized enough to comment in detail on the specific mechanism by which one could theoretically duplicate the effect of the other, but I have direct experience in how different mechanisms elicit the same effect on molecules.
I have been working on updating the Birkeland Eyde process – BE is a method to convert electricity, air and water into nitric acid that was in industrial production from 1910 to 1930. The basic BE process works by having an electrical arc across 2 wires heat up air to 10000 Celsius; at 4000C or so, the diatomic N and O in air break apart.
However, from a physics standpoint, what is actually necessary is to inject 1 eV (electron volt) of energy into an N2 or O2 molecule. High temperature does this by accelerating the molecules to speeds high enough that collisions generate the requisite energy, but modern methods more directly inject energy straight to the molecule. This allows really cool things like being able to execute the N2/O2 disassociation underwater…
But again – if you look at the tables for the paper above as well as for most of the “advanced” superconductors: what they really show is lower resistance, not no resistance. This is superconductivity in a literal sense but not an engineering sense thus not useful.
There is a clear relationship between decreased resistance and business benefit – this is the line losses that occur in electricity transmission but cost of materials and maintenance (in the case of non-room temperature materials) has to be such that the money saved in less transmission line losses is more than the higher cost of materials/maintenance. This is already true for very limited applications as there are short superconducting lines installed in a few places, basically super high power short distance lines, but it isn’t clear at all to me that any of the present materials will ever make everyday superconducting materials a la science fiction, reality.
Very interesting. The BE process looks like the means by which lightning fixes atmospheric nitrogen. Good point about the economics issues.
Correct, BE is exactly the process by which lightning fixes atmospheric nitrogen. The bolts split N2/O2 and then rain brings the NO/NO2 plus H2O down to earth where the forms HN03 in dilute form. You can use PAW (plasma activated water) as a man made solution to provide fixed nitrogen but it is not remotely an economic solution because obviously very low nitric acid/acidity water is not going to deliver a lot of fixed nitrogen.
I literally found BE in a science fiction book while looking for ways to make use of the burgeoning amounts of curtailed electricity – mostly from wind and solar PV, but it is now clear that the modern methods. combined with both curtailed electricity and otherwise flared NG via NG generators, is structurally and economically a better way to create nitric acid than the existing Haber-Bosch followed by Ostvald methods.
Thank you for your comment. It is interesting.
I can only hope (suggest?) that your work will ultimately have the benefit of splitting the H2O molecule at an efficiency much higher than that currently achieved with the best of electrolysis devices.
Unfortunately, the method we are using is never going to work for hydrogen because it fundamentally involves a spark 🙂
However, there are enormous applications of the base technology beyond “next generation” Birkeland Eyde. Among other things, it can be used to destroy PFAS in water as well as clean up fracking chemicals in water. There are still enormous economic issues but the vast absolute amounts of wasted energy in the form of curtailed electricity and flared natural gas presents all manner of opportunities.
Among the list of areas to be worked on is using the eV energy delivery system to process KCl –> KOH –> K2CO3 meaning in theory, it is possible to capture the CO2 from the natural gas burned in a generator thus rendering the whole process carbon emissions free while generating potassium fertilizers along with nitrogen fertilizers. Every step of the K-process above already exists but converting the existing industrial setups into standalone small rigs that can be transported to a flared NG well requires engineering and development.
I’m even looking at tech to recover the water from the methane burning; the “next generation” BE process utilizes a pool of water which is super heavy, so there is an economic reason why it would be great to capture both outputs from the 4xCH3 + 7xO2 –> 6xH2O + 4xCO2 burning methane equation. Capturing half of the water output would mean a more or less water neutral production process.
Should correct: methane = CH4. I have been looking at ammonia/Haber Bosch processes so had H3 on the brain.
Should be 2xCH4 + 4xO2 –> 2xCO2 + 4xH2O
apatite
≈=≈===
A brisk walk can replicate.
I am going to make one more comment and then leave this alone, but the reported size difference between Cu+2 and Pb+2 in this paper appears to overstate Pb+2 and understate Cu+2 by about 13pm each. I have no idea if this puts doubt in the proposed mechanism but it is odd.
We have a cold fusion moment, more likely than not.